THE SCENERY OF THE COAL PERIOD. 153 



pebbles, and transported to embankments sometimes thou 

 sands of feet in thickness. The tombs of the Ceplialaspis, 

 Pterichthys^Coccosteus, and Holoptychius of the Old World, 

 and of Onychodus, Machcer acanthus, Agassichthys, and Hi- 

 nodus of the New, were buried immemorable depths be 

 neath the rubbish of a geological revolution. These were 

 the accumulations of the &quot;Millstone Grit.&quot; Anon, the vio 

 lence of Nature suffered a pause, and finer sediments only 

 were transported over the areas previously strewn with 

 sand and pebbles. Many alternations of finer and coarser 

 deposits thus succeed each other among the lower beds re 

 posing immediately beneath the coal. 



In the course of ages the shallow sea became a marsh. 

 Now that a foothold for terrestrial vegetation was estab 

 lished, the all-adaptive hand of Nature planted the soil 

 with many kinds of herbs and trees. Simultaneously, on 

 every side, innumerable germs spring up from the new- 

 made sediments. Vegetation, in varied types and family 

 alliances, starts forth at the fiat of creative energy, and the 

 world is dressed in a garment of shining verdure. No 

 provident hand had strewn the soil with the seeds of these 

 unfamiliar forms. The All - commanding had summoned 

 the tribes of plants from the shadowy realm of ideas, and 

 they stood forth in multitudinous array, clad in the newest 

 and brightest garments of Nature s exhaustless wardrobe 

 mute, unconscious existences, but yet with life and or 

 gans, beginning from the moment of their appearance to 

 play upon the elements which Omniscience had provided 

 for their elaboration. How carefully was the soil prepared 

 to encourage the luxuriant growth and wide dissemination 

 of these beautiful creatures ! Lifted above the level of the 

 sea, it maintained the humid condition most congenial to 

 the nature of the most luxuriant growers. The internal 

 heat of the earth, however, at this^ early period, warmed 



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